Sports · 4 min
Rounds.
In a cramped apartment full of instruments, two guarded people circle tenderness over pasta, music, and the things they're afraid to say plainly.
The roles
RAFA
Mid-20s. A boxer who trains every day and doesn't know how to sit still in a stranger's apartment. Polite, physical, and completely out of his depth.
DEVI
Mid-20s. A musician and songwriter with progressive hearing loss. Comfortable in her own space, funny when she's nervous, and not used to someone this quiet.
Rounds · Sports side · memorlined.app
(A small apartment. Instruments everywhere — a keyboard against the wall, cables across the floor, a mic stand in the corner with a jacket hanging from it. The kitchen is part of the living room. DEVI is at the stove. RAFA stands near the door.)
DEVI
You can come in.
RAFA
I'm in.
DEVI
You're in the doorway. That's different. Sit anywhere that isn't an instrument.
(He moves a cable off a chair. Sits.)
RAFA
Something smells good.
DEVI
It's just pasta. The sauce is from a jar. Don't get excited.
RAFA
I wasn't going to judge.
DEVI
You made a face.
RAFA
That's just my face.
(She stirs the pot. He looks around the room.)
RAFA
You play all of these?
DEVI
Most of them. The bass is my roommate's. She left it when she moved out and I just kept it.
RAFA
Can you play bass?
DEVI
No. But it looks good in the corner.
(She turns down the heat.)
DEVI
So. You said you train at a gym.
RAFA
I didn't say I train at a gym. I said I box.
DEVI
Right. Boxing. Is it... fun?
(He almost smiles.)
RAFA
Sometimes.
DEVI
When.
RAFA
When it goes right. When you're moving and not thinking.
DEVI
And when it doesn't go right?
RAFA
Then it hurts.
(A timer goes off on her phone. She drains the pasta. Steam fills the small kitchen.)
DEVI
Hope you're hungry. I always make too much.
RAFA
I'm always hungry.
(She puts plates on the table. He moves more cables to make room.)
DEVI
You have a show coming up?
RAFA
What?
DEVI
Oh. No. I have a show. Next Friday. Small venue. Like, eighty people maybe.
RAFA
That's decent.
DEVI
For the venue or for me?
RAFA
Both.
(They eat for a moment.)
DEVI
You can ask.
RAFA
Ask what.
DEVI
About the hearing aids. You've been looking at my ears since you walked in.
(He puts his fork down.)
RAFA
I noticed. I didn't want to be weird about it.
DEVI
That ship sailed when you stood in my doorway for a full minute.
RAFA
It was not a minute.
DEVI
It was longer than you think.
RAFA
Are they...
DEVI
They help. It's progressive, so they'll help less over time. But right now they're good.
RAFA
Including the music?
DEVI
Especially the music. Low frequencies go last. So the stuff I write, I hear it better than anything else.
RAFA
I didn't know that.
DEVI
Most people don't.
(She twirls pasta on her fork.)
DEVI
Your hands are taped.
RAFA
Oh. Yeah. Came straight from the gym. Forgot to take it off.
DEVI
Leave it. It's fine.
(He looks at his taped hands. Picks up the fork.)
RAFA
Can I hear something? That you wrote.
DEVI
Right now?
RAFA
If that's... yeah.
(She puts her fork down. Goes to the keyboard. Plays a few bars of something low, warm, unfinished. She stops.)
DEVI
It's not done.
RAFA
That was good.
DEVI
It's not done.
RAFA
I'm saying what I heard was good.
(She comes back to the table.)
DEVI
My hands shake after I play sometimes. Not from anything medical. Just adrenaline.
RAFA
Mine too. After a fight.
DEVI
Yeah?
RAFA
Different reason, probably.
DEVI
Maybe not.
(He pushes pasta around the plate.)
RAFA
This is good. The sauce.
DEVI
It's from a jar.
RAFA
The jar's good.
(She laughs.)
DEVI
You're very easy to cook for.
RAFA
Low bar. Pasta and someone who doesn't ask my win-loss record in the first five minutes.
DEVI
What is your win-loss record?
RAFA
And there it is.
DEVI
I'm kidding. You don't have to tell me.
RAFA
I will. Just not tonight.
(She looks at him, then turns back toward the stove.)
DEVI
You know what, I'm actually glad Kenji gave you my number. I was annoyed at first, but—
(Her phone buzzes on the counter. She picks it up, reads it, sets it face down.)
DEVI
Never mind. Eat your pasta.
RAFA
What were you going to say?
DEVI
Nothing. I forgot.
(He looks at her. She doesn't look back. She turns the burner off.)
DEVI
You want something to drink? I have water and... water.
RAFA
Water's fine.
Print it for class, or open it in the app: every role in this side is playable, and the other side of the scene gets a reader. Cast a voice against your part in the Audition Room, then run it until the lines are yours.
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